Started with finishing up the final module for our main program which parses the data the doctor and her staff gather over the course of a visit and creates a report the patient receives at checkout.

The intent of the report is two fold:

1. Engage and inform the patient about the state of their health and how it's being managed.
2. Preemptively handle questions and confusion which sometimes spring up after a visit.

Patients seldom take notes during their visits, and particularly if their health issues are complicated or being managed with multiple medications they may leave without a clear understanding of adjustments being made to their treatment. This can lead to the patient not following through on changes or the office having to field a number of follow up calls to clarify issues handled at the visit, but either forgotten or not understood. The report is hand crafted by hipster squirrels in the woods behind the office to try and head off these problems. We pay in single origin acorns.

Designing the module so it worked as closely as possible with the doctor's existing workflow, rather than interrupting her with additional bits of interface, was a challenge on the UI front, but I think I navigated it well enough. Most of the coding was pretty straight forward, though I did introduce a nasty bug at one point which made for a chaotic morning.

I have one more small but problematic feature to add involving medication samples given to a patient, but I'm pretty much at the point were I can begin the ground up rewrite of both main programs.

My intent is to take another workation soon to do the planning and initial layout stages of the rewrites. Some place with a nice view of the arriving spring and paths to hike off into when I need a break. I'm thinking probably Arkansas, but I haven't landed on anything specific yet.

The middle part of my week was spent prepping the 2019 report for Medicare's MIPS (Merit-based Incentive Payment System) program, part of its torturous Meaningful Use initiative. It's a mostly voluntary thing, I think, and ideally turns into a bit of coin, but it's painfully tedious and time consuming, and my least favorite of the things I hate to do every year.

But now it's Friday, and the Things Which Must Be Done are done, so I can recline with a coffee and my iPad, and plan for next week while I look forward to seeing Crazy Town tonight at Kilgore College.